[619]*619HANSEN, Circuit Judge.
We granted en banc review to determine whether a school board ran afoul of a student’s free speech rights when it expelled him for an offensive and vulgar letter that the student had prepared at home. The expelled student described in the letter how he would rape, sodomize, and murder a female classmate who had previously broken up with him. After a bench trial, the district court ordered the expelled student reinstated, concluding that the letter was not a “true threat” and that it therefore was protected speech under the First Amendment. A divided panel of our court affirmed the district court’s decision. See Doe v. Pulaski County Special Sch. Dist., 263 F.3d 833 (8th Cir.2001). We vacated the panel decision, ordered en banc rehearing, and now hold that the school board did not violate the student’s First Amendment rights when it expelled him.
I.BACKGROUND AND FACTS
J.M., a male, and K.G., a female, began “going together” during their seventh-grade year at Northwood Junior High School. As one would expect from typical junior high students, the two primarily saw each other at school and church, and their relationship was marked by multiple breakups during the school year. Sometime during the summer vacation after the end of the seventh-grade year, K.G. “broke up” with J.M. for the final time because she was interested in another boy.
Frustrated by the breakup and upset that K.G. would not go out with him again, J.M. drafted two violent, misogynic, and obscenity-laden rants expressing a desire to molest, rape, and murder K.G. According to J.M., he intended to write a rap song with lyrics similar in theme to the more vulgar and violent rap songs performed by controversial “rappers” such as Eminem, Juvenile, and Kid Rock, but found that his “song” fit no particular beat or rhythm. J.M. ultimately penned the documents as letters, signing them at then-conclusion. J.M. prepared both letters at his home, where they remained until J.M.’s best friend, D.M., discovered one of them approximately a month before the youths were to begin their eighth-grade year at Northwood.
D.M. found the letter in J.M.’s bedroom while he was searching for something on top of a dresser. Before D.M. had a chance to read the letter, J.M. snatched it from his hand. D.M. asked to read the letter, and J.M. handed it back to him and gave D.M. permission to read the letter. (Trial Tr. at 176-77; 300-02.) D.M. asked for a copy of the letter, but J.M. refused to give him one.
K.G. also learned about the existence and contents of the letter, but it was not made clear during the trial when or how she learned about it. K.G. testified that she first learned about a letter during a •telephone conversation with J.M. She claimed that J.M. told her that another boy had written a letter that stated she would be killed. J.M. claimed instead that K.G. learned about the letter from D.M. Either way, the testimony clearly established that J.M. voluntarily discussed the letter with K.G. during two or three telephone conversations and that J.M. admitted to K.G. in their final telephone conversation that he, not another boy, had written the letter.
Concerned about the letter, K.G. enlisted D.M.’s help in obtaining it from J.M. About a week before the start of school, D.M. spent the night at J.M.’s house and took the letter from J.M.’s room on the following morning. D.M. did so without J.M.’s knowledge or permission. D.M. delivered the letter to K.G. on the second [620]*620day back from summer vacation, and KG. read it in gym class in the presence of some other students. One of those students went immediately to the school resource officer, Officer James Kesterson, and reported that threats had been made against K.G. Officer Kesterson accompanied the student back to the gym where he found K.G. frightened and crying. K.G. told Officer Kesterson that J.M. had threatened her and explained how she obtained the letter. Officer Kesterson conducted an investigation and informed school administrators about the situation.
Bob Allison, the principal, conducted his own investigation and learned that D.M. had taken the letter from J.M. and delivered it to K.G. at school. After the investigation, Principal Allison recommended that J.M. be expelled from Northwood for the remainder of his eighth-grade year. Allison based his recommendation on Rule 36 of the district’s Handbook for Student Conduct and Discipline, which prohibits students from making terrorizing threats against others. The rule requires that a violator be recommended for expulsion.2
J.M. and his parents appealed the principal’s recommendation to the Director of Student Services and Athletics, who serves as a hearing officer under the district’s rules. The director recommended that J.M. be suspended from Northwood for one semester but that J.M. be allowed to attend the district’s alternative school during the period of his suspension. J.M. appealed the director’s decision to the school board. In the interim, he attended the alternative school from August 29 through September 12, the date of the school board’s hearing on J.M.’s appeal. The school board voted at the conclusion of the hearing to expel J.M. from both North-wood and the alternative school for the remainder of his eighth-grade year, essentially adopting Principal Allison’s initial recommendation.
Upset with the school board’s decision, J.M.’s mother filed this lawsuit on her son’s behalf. J.M. sought reinstatement at Northwood on the ground that the school board violated his free speech rights when it disciplined him for the letter. On September 27, 2000, the district court issued a temporary restraining order, directing the board.to reinstate J.M. on the condition that he have no contact with K.G. In November 2000, the district court held a bench trial on J.M.’s First Amendment claim and found in favor of J.M. The court concluded that the letter was not a true threat of violence, which may be punished without offending an individual’s First Amendment rights, because J.M. had prepared the letter at home and did not intend to deliver it to K.G. The district court’s judgment required the district to permanently reinstate J.M., to restore all rights and privileges he lost, and to remove from J.M.’s school records any reference to the expulsion.
II. DISCUSSION AND ANALYSIS
A. Mootness and.Standard of Review
As a preliminary matter, J.M. argues that we no longer have jurisdiction because his First Amendment claim was rendered moot when he completed his eighth-grade year at Northwood. According to J.M., even if we reverse the district court’s judgment, our decision will have no [621]*621practical effect because he was expelled only for the remainder of his eighth-grade year, which he has completed. We agree that an appeal must be dismissed as moot when our decision will have no “effectual relief whatever to a prevailing party.” Church of Scientology of Cal. v. United States, 506 U.S. 9, 12, 113 S.Ct. 447, 121 L.Ed.2d 313 (1992) (internal quotations omitted). We disagree, however, that our decision can have no effect for either party and conclude that a live case or controversy remains between the parties.
In addition to reinstating J.M., the district court required the school board to expunge any mention of J.M.’s Rule 36 violation from his school records and ordered it to restore all of J.M.’s rights and privileges. If we reverse the district court, the district will no longer be required to refrain from documenting the incident in J.M.’s school records. Cf Kerr v. Farrey, 95 F.3d 472, 476 (7th Cir.1996) (concluding that inmate’s request to have disciplinary action expunged from his record was not rendered moot when inmate was paroled). Nor will the district be required to refrain from considering J.M.’s past rule violation in determining his present privileges as a student in the district; for instance, whether J.M. can be excluded from a class that K.G. is taking. Moreover, the district has a legitimate interest in a judicial determination of whether its application of the rule prohibiting terrorizing threats was constitutional because the district court’s judgment implicates the district’s ability to protect its students and staff. See Papish v. Bd. of Curators of the Univ. of Mo., 464 F.2d 136, 142 (8th Cir.1972) (reasoning that an expelled student’s constitutional challenge was not moot, based on the student’s subsequent academic ineligibility, where the lawsuit weakened the University’s ability to maintain regulatory measures benefitting its students), reversed and remanded on other grounds, 410 U.S. 667, 93 S.Ct. 1197, 35 L.Ed.2d 618 (1973).
In reviewing a district court’s judgment following a bench trial, we normally review the court’s factual findings for clear error and its conclusions of law de novo. Speer v. City of Wynne, 276 F.3d 980, 984-85 (8th Cir.2002). An. appellate court’s review, however, is unique in the context of a First Amendment claim. New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, 376 U.S. 254, 284-85, 84 S.Ct. 710, 11 L.Ed.2d 686 (1964). When such a claim is raised, we must “make an independent examination of the whole record ... to assure ... that the judgment does not constitute a forbidden intrusion on the field of free expression.” Id. at 285, 84 S.Ct. 710 (internal quotations omitted). Following a bench trial involving a First Amendment claim, an independent review of the facts is not necessarily a de novo review of all the facts relevant to the ultimate judgment entered. See Families Achieving Independence and Respect v. Neb. Dep’t of Soc. Servs., 111 F.3d 1408, 1411 (8th Cir.1997). Facts irrelevant to the free speech issue remain subject to the clear error standard, but we make a “fresh examination” of those facts that are crucial to the First Amendment inquiry. Id. (quoting Hurley v. Irish-Am. Gay, Lesbian, & Bisexual Group of Boston, 515 U.S. 557, 567, 115 S.Ct. 2338, 132 L.Ed.2d 487 (1995)). In doing so, we are not bound by the district court’s witness-credibility determinations, yet we remain cognizant that the district court is in the best seat to observe the demeanor of the witnesses. Id.
B. The True Threat Inquiry
As a general matter, the First Amendment prohibits governmental actors from directing what persons may see, read, speak, or hear. Ashcroft v. The Free [622]*622Speech Coalition, 535 U.S. 234, -, 122 S.Ct. 1389, 1399, 152 L.Ed.2d 403 (2002). Free speech protections do not extend, however, to certain categories or modes of expression, such as obscenity, defamation, and fighting words. R.A.V. v. City of St. Paul, 505 U.S. 377, 382-83, 112 S.Ct. 2538, 120 L.Ed.2d 305 (1992). The government is permitted to regulate speech that falls within these categories because the speech is “ ‘of such slight social value as a step to truth that any benefit that may be derived from them is clearly outweighed by the social interest in order and morality.’ ” Id. at 382, 112 S.Ct. 2538 (quoting Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire, 315 U.S. 568, 572, 62 S.Ct. 766, 86 L.Ed. 1031 (1942)). Of course the rule remains that the government’s proscription of speech within these categories may not, in general, be based on the content of the speech or the speaker’s viewpoint. Id. at 383-86, 112 S.Ct. 2538.
In Watts v. United States, 394 U.S. 705, 89.S.Ct. 1399, 22 L.Ed.2d 664 (1969), the Supreme Court recognized that threats of violence also fall within the realm of speech that the government can proscribe without offending the First Amendment. Although there may be some political or social value associated with threatening words in some circumstances, the government has an overriding interest in “protecting individuals from the fear of violence, from the disruption that fear engenders, and from the possibility that the threatened violence will occur.” R.A.V., 505 U.S. at 388, 112 S.Ct. 2538. Our task, therefore, is to determine “[w]hat is a threat ... from what is constitutionally protected speech.” Watts, 394 U.S. at 707, 89 S.Ct. 1399. The Court in Watts, however, set forth no particular definition or description of a true threat that distinguishes an unprotected threat from protected speech. Thus, the lower courts have been left to ascertain for themselves when a statement triggers the government’s interest in preventing the disruption and fear of violence associated with a threat.
The federal courts of appeals that have announced a test to parse true threats from protected speech essentially fall into two camps. See United States v. Fulmer, 108 F.3d 1486, 1490-91 (1st Cir.1997) (describing the differing circuit approaches to ascertaining a true threat). All the courts to have reached the issue have consistently adopted an objective test that focuses on whether a reasonable person would interpret the purported threat as a serious expression of an intent to cause a present or future harm. See id. The views among the courts diverge, however, in determining from whose viewpoint the statement should be interpreted. Some ask whether a reasonable person standing in the shoes of the speaker would foresee that the recipient would perceive the statement as a threat, whereas others ask how a reasonable person standing in the recipient’s shoes would view the alleged threat. Compare Planned Parenthood of the Columbia/Willamette, Inc. v. Am. Coalition of Life Activists, 290 F.3d 1058, 1075 (9th Cir.2002) (en banc), with United States v. Malik, 16 F.3d 45, 49 (2d Cir.), cert, denied, 513 U.S. 968, 115 S.Ct. 435, 130 L.Ed.2d 347 (1994).
Our court is in the camp that views the nature of the alleged threat from the viewpoint of a reasonable recipient. In United States v. Dinwiddie, we emphasized the fact intensive nature of the true threat inquiry and held that a court must view the relevant facts to determine “whether the recipient of the alleged threat could reasonably conclude that it expresses ‘a determination or intent to injure presently or in the future.’ ” 76 F.3d 913, 925 (8th Cir.) (quoting Martin v. United States, 691 F.2d 1235, 1240 (8th [623]*623Cir.1982)), cert. denied, 519 U.S. 1043, 117 S.Ct. 613, 136 L.Ed.2d 538 (1996); see also United States v. Hart, 212 F.3d 1067, 1071 (8th Cir.2000) (quoting Dinwiddie’s statement of what amounts to a true threat), cert. denied, 531 U.S. 1114, 121 S.Ct. 860, 148 L.Ed.2d 774 (2001). We also set forth in Dinwiddie a nonexhaustive list of factors relevant to how a reasonable recipient would view the purported threat. Those factors include: 1) the reaction of those who heard the alleged threat; 2) whether the threat was conditional; 3) whether the person who made the alleged threat communicated it directly to the object of the threat; 4) whether the speaker had a history of making threats against the person purportedly threatened; and 5) whether the recipient had a reason to believe that the speaker had a propensity to engage in violence. Dinwiddie, 76 F.3d at 925.
In affirming the district court’s conclusion that the letter constituted protected speech, our vacated panel opinion discussed Dinwiddie’s factors but ultimately relied on the Ninth Circuit’s definition of a true threat in Lovell v. Poway Unified Sch. Dist., 90 F.3d 367 (9th Cir.1996). See Doe, 263 F.3d at 836-37. In Lovell, the Ninth Circuit explained that its test is “ ‘whether a reasonable person would foresee that the statement would be interpreted by those to whom the maker communicates the statement as a serious expression of intent to harm or assault.’ ” Lovell, 90 F.3d at 372 (quoting United States v. Orozco-Santillan, 903 F.2d 1262, 1265 (9th Cir.1990)). Our panel reasoned that the Ninth Circuit, in focusing on whether a reasonable speaker would know of the threatening nature of his or her statement, provided the most concise standard to separate a true threat from protected speech. Doe, 263 F.3d at 837.
The panel’s implicit rejection of the Din-widdie true threat inquiry has some support. The First Circuit rejected the reasonable recipient approach, reasoning that it creates the peril that a speaker’s constitutional rights could turn on a recipient’s unique sensitivity or characteristic that is, or may be, unknown to the speaker. Fulmer, 108 F.3d at 1491. The notion underlying the First Circuit’s decision is that the reasonable recipient test is less conducive to the robust and wide-open public debate envisioned by the First Amendment because a speaker may find it necessary to tone down his or her speech in fear of triggering a recipient’s unknown sensitivity.
While a panel is normally bound to follow our circuit’s prior panel decisions, we, as an en banc court, are free to overrule a prior decision or alter the law of our circuit when we determine such a course is necessary. Netland v. Hess & Clark, Inc., 284 F.3d 895, 899 (8th Cir.2002). Given our panel’s reliance on the reasonable speaker approach, and the First Circuit’s criticism of the reasonable recipient approach, we find it appropriate to address whether we should adhere to the true threat inquiry we previously adopted in Dinwiddie. The debate over the approaches appears to us to be largely academic because in the vast majority of cases the outcome will be the same under both tests. The result will differ only in the extremely rare case when a recipient suffers from some unique sensitivity and that sensitivity is unknown to the speaker. Absent such a situation, a reasonably foreseeable response from the recipient and an actual reasonable response must, theoretically, be one and the same. We have come across no case where such a situation has ever been presented. Moreover, we find no overarching problem with our Dinwid-die approach because the recipient’s reaction still must be a reasonable one even if he or she suffers some unique sensitivity, [624]*624thus alleviating much of the First Circuit’s concern. Finally, because neither party contends that one test or the other determines the outcome in this case, it is an inappropriate vehicle to use to alter our approach to ascertaining true threats. Accordingly, we adhere to Dinwiddie’s inquiry and hold that a true threat is a statement that a reasonable recipient would have interpreted as a serious expression of an intent to harm or cause injury to another.
C. Intent to Communicate
Before we address whether a reasonable recipient would view the letter as a threat, we are faced with a threshold question of whether J.M. intended to communicate the purported threat. The district court’s conclusion that the letter was protected speech turned on its finding that J.M. never intended to deliver the letter to K.G.; in other words, that J.M. never intended to communicate the purported threat to K.G. In determining whether a statement amounts to an unprotected threat, there is no requirement that the speaker intended to carry out the threat, nor is there any requirement that the speaker was capable of carrying out the purported threat of violence. Planned Parenthood, 290 F.3d at 1075. However, the speaker must have intentionally or knowingly communicated the statement in question to someone before he or she may be punished or disciplined for it. Id. The requirement is satisfied if the speaker communicates the statement to the object of the purported threat or to a third party. See, e.g., United States v. Crews, 781 F.2d 826, 831-32 (10th Cir.1986) (affirming conviction under 18 U.S.C. § 871 where a defendant made a statement to a third party that threatened to kill the President); Hawaii v. Chung, 75 Haw. 398, 862 P.2d 1063, 1071-73 (1993) (recognizing that a defendant’s statements to other teachers that he would kill the principal were true threats entitled to no First Amendment protection).
Requiring less than an intent to communicate the purported threat would run afoul of the notion that an individual’s most protected right is to be free from governmental interference in the sanctity of his home and in the sanctity of his own personal thoughts. See Stanley v. Georgia, 394 U.S. 557, 564-68, 89 S.Ct. 1243, 22 L.Ed.2d 542 (1969) (recognizing an individual’s right under the First Amendment to possess obscene material in the privacy of one’s home). In Stanley, the Supreme Court recognized that the First Amendment means, at a minimum, that the government has no business telling an individual what he may read or view in the privacy of his own home. Id. at 565, 89 S.Ct. 1243. The government similarly has no valid interest in the contents of a writing that a person, such as J.M., might prepare in the confines of his own bedroom. After all, “[o]ur whole constitutional heritage rebels at the thought of giving government the power to control” the moral contents of our minds. Id. It is only when a threatening idea or thought is communicated that the government’s interest in alleviating the fear of violence and disruption associated with a threat engages.
We conclude here that J.M. intended to communicate the letter and is therefore accountable if a reasonable recipient would have viewed the letter as a threat. Although J.M. snatched the letter out of D.M.’s hands when D.M. first found it, J.M. handed the letter back to D.M. and permitted D.M. to read it. J.M.’s decision to let D.M. read the letter is even more problematic for J.M. given his testimony that he knew there was a good possibility that D.M. would tell K.G. about the letter because D.M. and K.G. were friends. (Tri[625]*625al Tr. at 178.) J.M. also discussed the letter in more than one phone conversation with K.G., and J.M. admitted to K.G. that he wrote the letter and that it talked of killing her. J.M. made similar admissions to K.G.’s best friend who would be likely to convey the information to K.G. (Trial Tr. at 174-75.) One can hardly say, based on J.M.’s willingness to let D.M. read the letter and his overt discussion of the letter and its contents with K.G. and K.G.’s best friend, that J.M. intended to keep the letter, and the message it contained, within his own lockbox of personal privacy.
D. Reasonable Recipient’s Perception of the Letter
We turn next to the question of whether a reasonable recipient would have perceived the letter as a threat. There is no question that the contents of the letter itself expressed an intent to harm K.G., and we disagree entirely, but respectfully, with the district court’s assessment that the words contained in it were only “arguably” threatening. The letter exhibited J.M.’s pronounced, contemptuous and depraved hate for K.G. J.M. referred to or described K.G. as a “bitch,” “slut,” “ass,” and a “whore” over 80 times in only four pages. He used the f-word no fewer than ninety times and spoke frequently in the letter of his wish to sodomize, rape, and kill K.G. The most disturbing aspect of the letter, however, is J.M.’s warning in two passages, expressed in unconditional terms, that K.G. should not go to sleep because he would be lying under her bed waiting to kill her with a knife.3 Most, if not all, normal thirteen-year-old girls (and probably most reasonable adults) would be frightened by the message and tone of J.M.’s letter and would fear for their physical well-being if they received the same letter. Cf. Jones v. Arkansas, 347 Ark. 409, 64 S.W.3d 728, 736 (2002) (concluding that a rap song that described the murder of a fifteen-year-old female student and her family, which was written by a male student and delivered to the female student, was a true threat).
The fact that J.M. did not personally deliver the letter to K.G. did not dispel its threatening nature. Although J.M. did not personally hand the letter to K.G., J.M. titled the letter “F_that bitch [K.G.],” and he wrote the letter as though he was speaking directly to her. As a consequence, the letter was extremely intimate and personal, and the violence described in it was directed unequivocally at K.G. Cf. Bellrichard, 994 F.2d at 1321 (recognizing that correspondence directed to one’s home or work is more likely to be perceived as a threat than a general statement delivered at a public gathering).
There is also no indication that J.M. ever attempted to alleviate KG.’s concerns about the letter during the period between when he told her about the letter and when she received it at school. Prior to K.G. obtaining the letter, J.M. had discussed its contents with her in phone conversations, and he testified at trial that he knew K.G. might have taken the threat as being truthful. It readily appears that J.M. wanted K.G. to be scared as retribution for her treatment of him. In fact, [626]*626KG.’s best friend testified at trial that J.M. told her, before D.M. obtained the letter and delivered it, that J.M. wanted to hide under KG.’s bed and kill her. J.M. told this to KG.’s best friend knowing the friend would likely pass the message along to K.G. (Trial Tr. at 239-41). J.M. also shared the letter with D.M. suspecting that D.M. would pass the information it contained to K.G. J.M. ultimately apologized to K.G., but his apology came only after he was expelled by the school board and during the pendency of the district court proceeding. The crescendoing events that presaged KG.’s receipt of the actual letter would not have given a reasonable person in KG.’s shoes much solace that J.M. did not want or intend to harm her.
Based on the tone of the letter, and the situation surrounding its communication, we are not surprised that those who read it interpreted it as a threat. Watts, 394 U.S. at 708, 89 S.Ct. 1399 (recognizing the reaction of the listener is relevant to whether the speech is protected). D.M. was concerned enough by the letter that he purloined it from his friend’s home because he “felt that something should be done about it.” (Trial Tr. at 302.) A girl present when K.G. first read the letter immediately went to Officer Kesterson because she thought someone needed to know about the letter and the threats contained therein. School officials conducted an investigation and ultimately instituted expulsion proceedings because they believed the letter amounted to a “terrorizing threat.”4 As for K.G., she broke down crying and was scared to leave the gym after she read the letter. She also slept with the lights on for the first couple of nights after the incident. The junior high principal who observed KG. shortly after K.G. received the letter described K.G. as being extremely frightened. He explained that KG. remained frightened enough of J.M. that she went home early when J.M. returned to school after the district court temporarily reinstated him.
J.M.’s previous portrayal of himself as a tough guy with a propensity for aggression made his threat more credible and contributed to KG.’s reaction. Before the breakup, J.M. had told K.G., as well as KG.’s best friend and D.M., that he was a member of the “Bloods” gang. (Trial Tr. at 243, 259-60, 299). K.G. also testified at trial that J.M. once shot a cat while she was speaking to him on the phone and that J.M.’s penchant for violence towards animals heightened her concern over the letter. (Trial Tr. at 262-63.) The district court excluded the district’s evidence of J.M.’s violent propensities on the ground that the evidence was not considered by the school board. We conclude, however, that the evidence is relevant to an understanding of KG.’s response to the threat and our determination of whether her response was a reasonable one. See Families Achieving Independence, 111 F.3d at 1411 (“[I]n cases involving the First Amendment, appellate courts must make an independent examination of the whole record to ensure that its judgment does not constitute a forbidden intrusion on the field of free expression.” (internal quotations omitted)).
Viewing the entire factual circumstances surrounding the letter, we conclude that a reasonable recipient would have perceived J.M.’s letter as a serious expression of an intent to harm KG. As such, the letter amounted to a true threat, [627]*627and the school’s administrators and the school board did not violate J.M.’s First Amendment rights by initiating disciplinary action based on the letter’s threatening content. The district court’s contrary conclusion was erroneous. Had we been sitting as the school board, we might very well have approached the situation differently, for it appears to us that the board’s action taken against J.M. was unnecessarily harsh. Other options have occurred to us that could have furthered the district’s interest in protecting its students, as well as have punished J.M., but also have aided him in understanding the severity and inappropriateness of his conduct. However, “[i]t is not the role of the federal courts to set aside decisions of school administrators which the court may view as lacking a basis in wisdom or compassion.” Wood v. Strickland, 420 U.S. 308, 326, 95 S.Ct. 992, 43 L.Ed.2d 214 (1975). Those judgments are best left to the voters who elect the school board.
III. CONCLUSION
We reverse the judgment of the district court and remand the ease to the district court with instructions to dissolve the in-junctive relief afforded J.M. and to dismiss J.M.’s First Amendment claim against the school district.